


green with envy, just like your eyes

by illiterateidiot



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Extreme Yearning, Introspective Castiel (Supernatural), One-Sided Dean Winchester/Castiel, Post-Season/Series 06, except he's a little creepier and crowley calls him a slur, it's basically a continuation of the stalking cas does to dean in "the man who would be king", not truly but bc of the circumstances, this is not particularly happy but i'm obsessed with s6 cas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29057151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illiterateidiot/pseuds/illiterateidiot
Summary: “Where’s heaven think you are, anyway? They think you’re on some holy mission, or do they know you’re at your place of worship?”
Kudos: 4





	green with envy, just like your eyes

“Envy’s a sin you know,” an amused voice says from behind him. Castiel sighs as he closes his eyes and counts to ten. It’s something he had seen Sam do from time to time; when Dean had struck his last nerve and he needed a moment to calm himself down. He opens his eyes and unsurprisingly still wants to burn Crowley alive the same as he did before. He wonders if it only works for humans. “Every time I come to hash things out with you, here you are. Watching over your little pet. You ever consider he never called because he’s just not that into you?” Dean _has_ called him actually, twice, when he drank just a little too much and found himself buried in books that undoubtedly would not bring Sam Winchester back from the cage. Of course, Sam is already walking the earth, but Castiel finds it impossible to tell Dean. To tell him that his brother is back, but wrong and something _other_ and it’s Castiel’s fault. He could lie and say that he doesn’t tell Dean because he wants him to have a normal, happy life—and it wouldn’t be a lie exactly because he _does_ want Dean to be happy, and if this- this life with a woman he barely knows and a child that is not his makes him happy, well, Castiel knows it’s not his right to interfere—but he knows, and Crowley knows, that truthfully it is nothing but shame that keeps him from telling Dean.

“So is pride, and angels feel that as deeply as any human,” is Castiel’s reply. There is no point in defending himself when he is standing in the kitchen of Lisa Braeden’s home watching Dean make breakfast for his… family. Dean looks right in domesticity, he thinks. “And did you ever consider the reason I never call you is that I don’t want to talk to you?” Castiel no longer has a phone, but he believes he gets the sentiment of hate across just the same. Crowley does nothing but roll his eyes and pull a list from his pocket.

“When you’re done making puppy eyes at the one that got away, I need a few things.”

“And why would I get you _things_?” Castiel asks, not even taking his eyes away from Dean to read the list.

Crowley gets haughty then, puffing up his chest and declaring, “Because we’re bloody business partners, in case you forgot! I can get most stuff myself, but you righteous lot have a few items I can’t get my hands on without a little _help_. So?” Castiel does not sigh because he _does not_ sigh because he is _not_ human, but he can feel the reaction building in him nonetheless. “Where’s heaven think you are, anyway? They think you’re on some holy mission, or do they know you’re at your place of worship?” Before Castiel can finally snap at Crowley that he’s an _angel_ and he will go wherever he damn-well _pleases_ regardless of Crowley or _Heaven_ for that matter, he’s interrupted by Dean yelling, “Soup’s on!” and the sudden commotion as the child makes his way down the stairs. He bounds with heavy feet toward the kitchen and grabs the plate Dean’s holding out with a, “Thanks, Dean!” before he digs in. Dean turns back to the stove with a secret, soft smile that causes a physical sensation in Castiel’s chest. He still does not understand the inner-workings of his- _Jimmy’s_ body, but he has felt that ache plenty of times to know it is matters of the heart. Matters that do not _concern_ him. That shouldn’t, anyway. This entire house does not concern him. Dean fixing up the back porch does not concern him. The child asking Dean to teach him how to ride a bike before Dean, embarrassed, admits he doesn’t really know either does not concern him. Lisa Braeden walking down the steps of their now-shared home to the kitchen and kissing Dean on the cheek before making her way to the yoga studio she owns does not concern him. But he feels the effect either way.

“You’re a real sad-sack, you know,” Crowley continues, apparently forgetting the list in favor of mocking Castiel. “A monster falls in love with a mortal man. A poor excuse of a monster, at that. You know how that story ends, Castiel?” Castiel’s jaw tics. He remembers when it didn’t. He remembers when his face did not move in tandem with the way he felt; the way he pretended he didn’t. With Dean, he began to practice it. He attempted to show his anger, his fear, and his appreciation in a human way Dean would understand, and now that he knows it, he can’t unlearn it. He has known this human less time than he has known anything, and he has managed to usurp the way Castiel thinks, reacts, and most importantly: the way he feels.

 _Am I a monster?_ He considers, rather than answer Crowley. There is no doubt that he’s a supernatural being beyond human comprehension, but does that make him a monster? When Dean used the term, he meant the things that lurk in the dark; humans who turn on their own kind in the darkest of ways. Castiel supposes it is not dark, but he does lurk. There is a part of him that feels entitled to it; entitled to viewing Dean’s life and the people it inhabits. That may be audacious. But so is his visceral hatred for a woman who has done nothing but care for the man he reveres as deeply as he did God once upon a time. He does not want harm to befall her, exactly, but he also imagines her falling ill or a demon taking her life and Dean returning to- well. Maybe he is a monster.

“Leave me the list and I’ll get your items,” Castiel tells him instead of answering his question. Of course Castiel knows how the story ends. Dean Winchester finds peace in a small town with a wife and a child, and Castiel rebuilds Heaven in the image he _knows_ is right and forgets about the man who changed him in ways Castiel will never be able to name as _better_ or _worse_. “Don’t make a regular thing of this.” He takes the list Crowley hands him, eyes still never leaving Dean who now sits in the breakfast nook as the child tells him about a teacher giving him a hard time while Dean reacts to the news as he should; as a father should, but a pain in his eyes Castiel reads with the ease of Enochian shows that he is thinking of Sam.

“I’ll never understand your obsession with the man,” Crowley scoffs. “He’s nothing. Just an instrument for us to-” and for the first time since Crowley showed his face Castiel tears his eyes away from Dean and interrupts the demon by taking his throat and slamming him into the wall. There is a moment of silence while Crowley looks at him, for the first time in a long time, like he is the avenging angel he is, and Dean frowns at the loud noise Castiel had not meant to make with Crowley’s head. But these things happen. After a moment of wariness, Dean gets up from his place at the table and goes to check the house.

Castiel takes a breath he does not need and says through his teeth, “I accept that I need you in the coming war. I accept that your _stain_ on _existence_ is going to aid me in the fight for Heaven. But if you insult Dean again, I will spread your atoms across this earth before very _slowly_ putting them back together.” Crowley pulls the hand at his throat to no avail. The only way he could move Castiel’s hand is if the angel wanted to be moved, and he does _not_.

“I called him an instrument _once_ you bloody ponce!" Crowley chokes out from around Castiel’s hand. “The man’s skin is thick enough, he doesn’t need you going avenging angel for an _insult!_ ” Dean’s skin is thick, perhaps, but Castiel knows it’s because he formed enough scars in his childhood for the skin to heal over tough. Barbed words inflicted by his father, children who saw Dean as an easy target when he was young and did not yet know how to put on a mask, and self-inflicted insults that he cannot help but defect to when he is not the hunter—the man—he feels his father wishes him to be. Admittedly, Crowley’s insult was something small; something every creature above and below think of humans as. Just instruments. Just pawns. But Castiel can hear the words Dean holds in the straightness of his shoulders and the handle of his gun. _Daddy’s blunt little instrument._ He knows Dean is so much more than that.

He releases Crowley’s throat just as Dean reenters the room. “Leave me,” Castiel commands. Crowley glares at him as he adjusts the tie Castiel crumpled. “And don’t return. I’ll come to you when I have your… things.” He still doesn’t know what they are. Truthfully, he very much does not care.

“Fine,” Crowley responds. “Enjoy your peep show.” He disappears at once, and Castiel breathes easier. No. He doesn’t breathe. Men breathe. Men and women and children breathe, and Castiel does not. He looks at Dean’s hand on the back of the child, telling him, “Sorry, Ben, I just- thought I heard something. Can’t be too careful.” And the child smiles warily, always a little wary of the man he craves to be his father but knows is a flight risk at best. But a father Dean is. Always has been. He mothered and fathered Sam Winchester from the tender age of four and has never looked back because Dean is a kind person; because his father commanded it. Castiel understands the appeal of a child, but he understands it the same way he understands the appeal of a plant. You have something to nurture and love, and the results will show whether you were a capable caretaker. He thinks he understands a little more when Dean has the child assist him with cars, or gives him a plate of breakfast with that secret smile, or shows him the stars and the respite they give from the rest of the world. But even then, he only understands from a viewpoint of making Dean happy. Not for the first time, he wonders how he ever thought he could show angels the path to freedom when his own is shrouded in the happiness of a single human being. Sometimes he thinks he may never be free as long as Dean Winchester walks the earth. Sometimes he thinks that he may only be free as long as Dean Winchester walks the earth. It frustrates him, that uncertainty.

A knock on the door startles the three of them—and Castiel should not be startled, he should have sensed it, he should have _known_ if he had only been paying attention to more of the world than a _man_ —and Dean, already wary, makes his way to the door with a hand on the knife in his pocket he doesn’t tell Lisa he has but she knows anyway. A voice from the other side calls, “I forgot my keys!” and Dean immediately relaxes and laughs. He opens the door, still laughing at the annoyed woman he cares for walking past him into their house.

“Biked all the way there before I realized,” she complains. “Had girls lined up outside and I had to bike all the way back just for my damn keys to open the damn door.”

“Your fault you wanted to start biking for your “carbon footprint” or whatever,” Dean teases her, and she whaps his chest with a smile, her frustration easing under his gaze, before grabbing her keys from the dish.

“I’ll be home 8 o’clock,” she promises with a kiss on his cheek like the one before. “Love you, Ben!” she calls out, and the child responds, “You too, mom!” while he distractedly picks at old syrup on the table. She gets two steps away before Dean pulls her back with a flourish and kisses her smiling mouth. Castiel looks away and is reminded of Anna. He did not understand his emotions at the time; did not understand why he was compelled to look away. He assumed he was ashamed of his sister showing compassion and love toward a _mortal_ , but every day it becomes obvious it was more than that. “I’m already late, Dean!” she says, but it’s obvious she doesn’t really mind. She leaves Dean with a smile on his face, and Castiel begins to consider whether watching over Dean is something he does out of affection or penance. There is always inexplicable pain when he returns, again and again, to watch this man become more and more integrated into this family. Explicable, perhaps, if he were human. Explicable, still, while he is an angel, but he finds it all too human to admit.

A voice rings in his head, Rachel, telling him, _We need you, Commander._ He drinks in the sight of Dean Winchester one final time, like he may never get the chance again—and knowing Raphael, he may not—before spreading his wings and leaving his vessel to ascend to the Heavens. He will not tell anyone—could not think to tell anyone but a man who no longer thinks of him—but each time he leaves the body that has become more his own than it has any right to, he counts the days before he can join his grace with his vessel once again.

**Author's Note:**

> i was reading a post on tumblr about s6 cas going like. DEEP into godstiel insanity arc and this is obviously nothing like it but they said something about cas not just standing in their yard but in their actual house and i. could not stop thinking about it. so i wrote cas being bitter and sad and deeply human to cope.


End file.
